


Fifth Kiss

by Brighid



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Five Kisses Challenge, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:02:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You only count the ones that matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifth Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Possible spoilers for SGA Season 1&2.

Fifth Kiss

Unofficially, Rodney's first kiss was when he was four. Michelle had stood stock-still for a whole thirty seconds, maybe, before walloping Rodney upside the head as hard as she could with the Fisher-Price car she'd been carrying. In later years, Rodney would recognize this as the beginning of a trend.

And so, while he never actually articulated this to anyone, not even himself, Rodney decided to only remember kisses that counted. This meant that Michelle had never truly happened. His first kiss was actually Jeremy in kindergarten, who'd leaned over in the sandbox and held his face very carefully and bussed his mouth, then licked all the jam off from around it. It had lacked finesse, certainly, but it had been heartfelt and there'd been no accompanying head trauma.

)0(

By the time he'd reached grade 13 he'd technically kissed a socially acceptable handful of people, enough that even as the youngest kid in the class by two years he had pretty good bragging rights. But in his head there was Jeremy, and now there was Marya, too; quietly, somewhere deep inside he knew that those were the only kisses that mattered because ... because ... and that was where the system always broke down, because he didn't know how to explain why, he just knew.

Marya had tasted like pink bubble gum lip balm and her high little breast had fit so neatly into the palm of his hand. She'd kissed him softly, sweetly, fumbling at his fly even as they'd fallen back across her bed. The spread had been Barbie-pink, and there'd been a dog-eared teddy bear that sometime later Rodney had turned face down into the sheets. When he'd kissed her lower, deeper, there'd been no pink, just flushed red and no taste of bubblegum left except for the faint echo of it on his own lips. When she'd cried out softly, arching against his mouth, he'd felt taller and broader and stronger and just more than he ever had before.

)0(

Lynn kissed him when he was twenty-six. It'd been four a.m. and they'd been up all night working their asses off to get their theses drafts written -- her first, his last -- and they'd stumbled across one another in the kitchen of their shared apartment. Lynn was short and plump with boyishly short red-brown hair and hazel eyes that smiled even when her mouth didn't. 

"Here," she'd said, handing him the mug she'd been fixing herself. "You look psychotic. I'll wait for the next pot." She'd been the first roommate he'd had whom he'd been able to stand for more than six months because yes, she studied English but she was still bright and kind and sharply funny and she could kick his ass at chess. And she liked him, which made her utterly incomprehensible to him. She'd held his head after he'd got home the night Aaron had called him a self-centred asshole and dumped him, and she'd even picked gravel out of his ass after the whole triathlon fiasco when he'd been dating Alyse, which was more than Alyse had done.

So Rodney had put down the coffee mug, and leaned in and kissed her, and he'd held her face just as Jeremy had held his, and he licked away the taste of coffee before opening his mouth to her own tongue, before breathing in her soft sigh. Finally she pulled back, and her pale mouth was red and wet. "The lease still expires in six months," she said gently. "And I'm still moving back to Saskatchewan. This could be a bad idea."

"I don't think so," Rodney had said. "I don't have bad ideas," and she laughed so hard she started to cry, and then she'd started hiccupping out the names of the last four people he'd dated in the two years they'd been roommates, but she'd still led him back to her bedroom and her dark blue cotton sheets and three pillows and they forgot about everything else that was supposed to matter for a good four or five hours.

The lease ran out six months later, and they'd had sex on his bedroom floor between the boxes, only it wasn't sex; it was making love, he finally understod that distinction after six months.

)0( 

Nothing else mattered again in quite the same way until Sam Carter's soft kiss on his cheek. Mostly unrequited love shouldn't count so much, and he resented her a bit for that, for just being so ... so... so... that she made him break his own rules. Then again, she'd been breaking rules all over the place for years; what made him so special?

The woman was so, so very frustrating.

)0(

It was very late when John Sheppard tracked him down into his quarters, smacked him upside the head and said: "What the hell were you thinking?" For a moment he had a faintly traumatic "Michelle" flashback.

"I was thinking I'd finish up the equations Zelenka didn't get to while we were all gallivanting with Ford and his merry men, and then get some sleep," he replied finally, after two or three false starts. "What do you think you're doing? I mean, aside from breaking and entering and, oh, I don't know, assaulting me?"

John stood very still, turned his head so that he was looking at the wall. "Beckett's report. It says your heart stopped." He turned back to Rodney and his eyes were so goddamn dark it made Rodney's gut clench.

"Oh, that," Rodney said at last. "Well. I had to get free ... or at least I thought I did. It was taking so long, you know? And they were being stupid but they had the advantage of numbers and so ... well, I've always been more of Spiderman fan, but I certainly have a new appreciation for Bruce Banner ... hey, you're not going to hit me again, are you? Because I've had a very hard week," Rodney trailed off, watching John's hands curling into tight fists. "Really, really hard week."

"Why didn't you say something?" John said after a very long, very uncomfortable silence. 

"Well, there wasn't much point. You'd already done your great escape, made us think you were dead and then appeared safe and sound after all. I really couldn't add anything to that," he said, not even trying to hide the thread of anger that licked through him.

"It's not your job to some rescue us," John said.

"The hell it's not!" And maybe he wasn't as clean and sober as he thought, because his heart was going hard and his palms itched and he wanted to just fucking hit Sheppard for being so stupid. "I know I'm not exactly the action hero you are but if I'm all you've got then I will do what I have to do. It's what we do," Rodney said. And then he leaned in and grabbed John's head, tilted it downward just that smallest degree and he kissed him so very, very hard because he wanted the feel of it to linger long after John had walked away.

Only John pulled him in tighter, closer, kissed him back just as hard, all tongue and teeth and soft curses. There was nothing easy or casual about it. He shifted, pulled away a bit, then leaned in and bit Rodney's jaw, just in the place it always made Rodney go a little crazy.

"You ... it ... it all exploded. Again," Rodney whispered, a little brokenly, into the side of John's head.

"Your heart stopped." John's voice was barely audible; Rodney felt it rather than heard it, and it made his pulse thrum in response. "This is like a really fucked up Gift of the Magi, here, Rodney."

"Fucked up works for us," Rodney replied. "Can't we just go to bed and have sex now?" 

John pulled back, looked at him for a long time, and then cupped his face gently in his hands. He leaned in and kissed him lightly, soft brushes of the mouth and small darts of the tongue that traced the outline of his mouth, the side of his nose, the corners of his eyes before settling sweetly on the pulse point, a butterfly kiss that made Rodney's heart break right in half.

"Jesus, John," Rodney gasped, and this, this thought Rodney, was the fifth.

And maybe, possibly, the first.

)0(


End file.
